3/25/12

Is Employee Loyalty a Trait of the Past?

I have been a retained executive recruiter for over 26 years
and have had the opportunity to interview thousands of possible
candidates.There is little doubt in my
mind that employee loyalty is at an all time low.

Of late I have been seeing more and more people ready to
jump ship and their employers don’t have a clue.Secretly sending off resumes for immediate
review and marking Emails containing resumes as CONFIDENTIAL and DO NOT FORWARD
WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE written all over them.A recent national survey claims that ONE in THREE professionals
surveyed, hope to have a new position within the next 12 months.This statistic if even 50% accurate, is HUGE!

So why the downturn in loyalty you might ask?

A.Stress levels are at an all time high

B.Morale levels are at an all time low

C.Insensitive and inept managers are in charge

D.Inclusion of the team as a concept has been
thrown by the wayside for penny pinching ideas

E.Very poor communications

F.Employees have learned how to give lip service
to pacify supervisors/management

G.Mission and Values that may or may not be stated
and/or demonstrated by management

H.Little utterance of the words, “Thank You”

I.Lack of respect of one’s supervisor which
happens to be an earned assessment

J.No defined corporate business and social responsibility

What makes all this terrible for profitability, the morale
of the company and the well being of the employee/employer health is that it
doesn’t have to be this way.So many
times I’ve counseled executives who have an employee departing, I’ve asked, “did
you try to save him/her?”No is usually
the answer, they’ve made up their mind so I just wished them well.But don’t you have time and money invested in
that employee I’d ask?Well yes, but
there is nothing I can do is typically the response.

The cost to replace one $9.00 per hour employee is somewhere
between $5,000 and $7,500.The cost to
replace one $80,000 salaried employee is about $120,000.THAT’S MONEY COMES RIGHT OFF THE BOTTOM LINE
AND REDUCES YOUR PROFITS ACCORDINGLY.

The time to think about retention is the first day an
employee starts.You must have a plan in
place.Secondly, you must take control
of the corporate destiny by treating people as people and realize that we are
all individuals.It matters not the
number of employees in your organization, if you are not a good business
citizen you will not be respected, rewarded and grow your organization.If you need assistance, we CAN help!

1 comment:

Sadly, most companies don't do much to earn their employees loyalty. No appreciation is shown and reviews seem to focus on the negative and not the positive. Companies that will remain nameless dump people for the bottom line, while the top executives announce a bonus year and their personal bonuses are in the millions. Thankfully I am independent of a boss, but my husband's employment of 32 years of loyalty has just been pulled out from under him. We are in a good place, but it saddens me to see the excess to people that would not be there were it not for the people they are displacing. Loyalty, loaded issue, my friend.